
Leann Johnson, the recently terminated equity director of the Oregon Health Authority, made wide-ranging allegations of discrimination against agency leadership, leading to two investigative reports issued in the three months before her controversial firing, new records show.
The reports address only two of the complaints filed by Johnson and did not address the complaint she told The Lund Report she filed against Oregon Health Authority Director Sejal Hathi before Hathi terminated her in June. According to a spokesperson, Hathi was unaware of the complaint directed at her.
Hathi, in a memo laying out the basis of the firing, cited Johnson’s alleged style of communication and a backlog of incomplete civil rights investigations as reasons Hathi did not opt for offering coaching instead. The move nevertheless has sparked dissension and poor morale at a time when Hathi has been trying to gain momentum on issues that include Oregon's health inequities and behavioral health crisis.
Now, the state Department of Administrative Services is refusing to disclose Johnson’s complaints, including one she made against Hathi, citing Oregon’s whistleblower protection law.
So the newly obtained investigative reports are significant in that they provide the most detailed account yet of Johnson’s concerns — as well as how two investigators interpreted them.
The first report, conducted by an outside firm, concerns allegations Johnson emailed on about April 19, 2023 to Dave Baden, who was then the agency’s interim director. Two weeks later, Baden forwarded it to DAS under the health authority’s policy for complaints made against leadership.
In the complaint, Johnson alleged that a top agency manager, Kristine Kautz, acted in a discriminatory fashion because she allegedly dismissed the potential for cultural bias in the proposed firing of an Oregon Health Authority employee who had been accused of fraud by the state unit that investigates allegations against providers and consumers of state benefits.
Johnson also said in the complaint that personnel decisions made by OHA lacked transparency and consistency, and had a discriminatory impact. For instance, she questioned that personnel managers in the agency did not back her manager’s proposal to fire an employee of color who was not Black, who was still in their trial period. The description aligns with a complaint Johnson later filed with the state Bureau of Labor and Industries saying that personnel managers restored an Asian employee to service who’d been proposed for firing but had not done so with a Black employee who was similarly situated.
The outside investigative report’s conclusions, obtained under Oregon Public Records Law, were a mixed bag. Nichole Anglin, an attorney with the outside firm Innova Legal Advisors, interviewed 12 witnesses between May and September of 2023 before concluding that the complaint against Kautz was not substantiated.
The investigator also substantiated the complaint accusing personnel managers at the Oregon Health Authority of inconsistency and lack of transparency, but considered the allegation of racial bias — a perception shared by many employees of color — to be not substantiated.
The reports allude to the fact that the equity and inclusion division overseen by Johnson, who is Black, had overlapping responsibilities with the agency’s personnel or human resources unit, overseen by Jennifer Midkiff, who is white. The overlapping responsibilities contributed to tensions, according to some witnesses interviewed, including Johnson.
One witness told the investigator that Midkiff and Johnson did not work well together, and that the tense relations flowed from that.
Another felt the situation reflected bias, a common perception at the agency, saying, “Black employees were feeling that nobody is safe here, that you can have all the degrees and all the experience and still be let go.”
The second report, documenting an investigation made by a personnel investigator at the Department of Administrative Services, concerned an allegation Johnson made against Midkiff of unprofessional behavior, saying that Midkiff had misled her about the role of a newly hired contract employee, making Johnson feel “gaslighted.”
Johnson told the investigator she filed the complaint hoping for “accountability and for HR to do better.”
In a report issued May 13, 2024 — barely a month before Johnson’s termination — the investigator deemed Johnson’s complaint unsubstantiated but said Midkiff’s communication could have been better.
As The Lund Report reported previously, records show an HR manager at OHA in March 2024 aired concerns to Hathi about a backlog of uncompleted civil rights investigations under Johnson, creating a risk of costly lawsuits for the agency. Johnson and another manager in her division said the backlog was caused by understaffing.
Hathi followed up and eventually decided to terminate Johnson, laying out the basis in a memo to Midkiff — the same HR director who was the subject of at least two complaints filed by Johnson.
On May 7, Hathi made comments at a public meeting that some within the agency felt were aimed at Johnson.
“I want every member of the leadership team to feel like they have each other’s backs, and we’re in this together,” Hathi told the board. “And I’m not sure that we are there right now.”
Comments
I have an in-depth…
I have an in-depth understanding of how our healthcare system works based on my lived experience, community engagements, academic preparedness, and professional interactions. I am well aware of cultural sensitivities and insensitivities, cognitive awareness, and the political and organizational policies within this industry and other settings.
I am not surprised how quickly Blacks and other people of color are terminated when the infractions are the same or similar to those of their white counterparts. I sense that "To achieve the change we seek requires changing the face of leadership." GC 2016.
Our ability to understand and interpret reality is directly related to our intellectual thinking, which is based on our racial and ethnic experiences and culturally acquired knowledge.
This situation is so unfortunate. In a time when DEI initiatives are under attack, this chaos gives fodder to those who argue against such efforts.